Environmentalism/Caring about animals **WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOS**

If people want to eat the flesh of animals, no one's going to be able to stop them. Certainly not me, some anonymous poster on some website - so please save me the "food nazi" speeches, this is a thread dedicated to those concerned about the Earth, animals, and how they can personally lessen their footprint on the Earth. You're free to make your own choices, as am I, and it is my choice to try and educate people about the food production industry. I'm not telling anyone what to eat. I'm merely challenging those who already make environmentally conscious/compassionate choices in their lives to face the reality of how their food choices negatively affect the planet as well. You're free to disagree with me, you're free to think I'm full of it, and you're free to continue your merry little chosen path. No one is forcing anything on you whatsoever.

Of course, the overly defensive folk may not even read this part, and just see the general purpose of this post and immediately click on 'Reply' to give their reactionary challenges, accusations, and insult hurling (I've seen it before). I just hope that doesn't happen. I welcome people who disagree with me and wish to actually discuss the issues based on facts in a friendly manner, as opposed to those who seek to "score points" and get into a fight.

Basically, if you don't give a shit about any of this, great, I wish you well - you're not going to change my mind and I'm not going to change yours - let's skip the frustrating infighting back and forth. But I hope those who, like me, care about the environment, but maybe never thought about how food production systems affect the Earth, might read on, or ask questions, or challenge themselves to examine this aspect of their lives.

I hope this thread can remain on-topic, and without anger towards either side. Believe it or not, nearly all vegetarians were meat-eaters once, too, we're not some mutant breed who just doesn't understand. I loved a good steak, and was a total cheese addict before I changed my diet. :)

WARNING: LINKED BELOW ARE MANY GRAPHIC, EXPLICIT AND OFFENSIVE PHOTOS DOCUMENTING THE REALITY OF FARM ANIMAL LIFE AND SLAUGHTER. PLEASE DO NOT READ ON IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO VIEW THIS MATERIAL!!

In 1920, the five corporations who controlled the Beef Trust and had gained a monopoly signed a consent decree which broke up their stranglehold on the beef market.

"For the next fifty years, ranchers sold their cattle in a relatively competitive marketplace. The price of cattle was set through open bidding at auctions. The large meatpackers competed with hundreds of small regional firms. In 1970 the top four meatpacking firms slaughtered only 21 percent of the nation's cattle. A decade later, the Reagan administration allowed these firms to merge and combine without fear of antitrust enforcement. The Justice Department and the P&SA's successor, the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), stood aside as the large meatpackers gained control of one local cattle market after another. Today the top four meatpacking firms - ConAgra, IBP, Excel and National Beef - slaughter about 84 percent of the nation's cattle. Market concentration in the beef industry is now at the highest level since record-keeping began in the early twentieth century."
-Excerpt from Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser, pgs. 137 & 138.

What we have in the U.S. is a system of factory farming. No longer do we have a happy picturesque family farm raising animals and a few acres of crops, this has long been abolished. From cattle (Grazing? Ha! Try massive corporate feedlots) to eggs (battery cages, row upon row of cages stacked on top of each other with 4 hens stuffed into each 16" wide cage) to dairy (confined cows hooked up to machines and kept constantly pregnant to produce more milk) to poultry production (giant sheds filled with tens of thousands of birds and kept in perpetual artificial twilight because it makes them a little fatter come slaughter time) to pig production sheds with endless rows of confined animals, so tightly restricted they can't even turn around. This is the norm, the status quo, and the vast majority of animal food is produced this way. The family farm has long been obsolete.

Such massive operations create tons (literally) of waste and pollution.

"Energy-intensive U.S. factory farms generated 1.4 billion tons of animal waste in 1996, which, the Environmental Protection Agency reports, pollutes American waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. Meat production has also been linked to severe erosion of billions of acres of once-productive farmland and to the destruction of rainforests.

...

The Union of Concerned Scientists points out that 20 tons of livestock manure is produced annually for every U.S. household. The much-publicized 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska dumped 12 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, but the relatively unknown 1995 New River hog waste spill in North Carolina poured 25 million gallons of excrement and urine into the water, killing an estimated 10 to 14 million fish and closing 364,000 acres of coastal shellfishing beds. Hog waste spills have caused the rapid spread of a virulent microbe called Pfiesteria piscicida, which has killed a billion fish in North Carolina alone.

More than a third of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. are used in animal production. Beef production alone uses more water than is consumed in growing the nation’s entire fruit and vegetable crop. Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fuel to drive 20 miles and causes the loss of five times its weight in topsoil. In his book The Food Revolution, author John Robbins estimates that “you’d save more water by not eating a pound of California beef than you would by not showering for an entire year.” Because of deforestation to create grazing land, each vegetarian saves an acre of trees per year.

“We definitely take up more environmental space when we eat meat,” says Barbara Bramble of the National Wildlife Federation. “I think it’s consistent with environmental values to eat lower on the food chain.”"


Circle Four Farms, a Utah-based pork producer, hosts a three-million gallon waste lagoon. When lagoons like this spill into rivers and lakes as happened in North Carolina in 1995, the result can be environmentally catastrophic.
© AP Photo / Douglas C. Pizac

-Excerpt from E/The Environmental Magazine's Jan/Feb 2002 cover story, The Case Against Meat, emphasis mine.
http://www.emagazine.com/january-february_2002/0102feat1.html

In addition to the massive environmental damage caused by factory farming, the conditions are horrible for the animals involved. It's downright torture, for lack of a better word.

BEEF:

"Most beef cattle spend the last few months of their lives at feedlots, crowded by the thousand into dusty, manure laden holding pens. The air is thick with harmful bacteria and particulate matter, and the animals are at a constant risk for respiratory disease. Feedlot cattle are routinely implanted with growth promoting hormones, and they are fed unnaturally rich diets designed to fatten them quickly and profitably. Because cattle are biologically suited to eat a grass-based, high fiber diet, their concentrated feedlot rations contribute to metabolic disorder.

....

At a standard beef slaughterhouse, 250 cattle are killed every hour. As the assembly line speeds up, workers are rushed, and it becomes increasingly difficult to treat animals with any semblance of humaneness. A Meat & Poultry article states, "Good handling is extremely difficult if equipment is 'maxed out' all the time. It is impossible to have a good attitude toward cattle
if employees have to constantly overexert themselves, and thus transfer all that stress right down to the animals, just to keep up with the line."

Prior to being hung up by their back legs and bled to death, cattle are supposed to be rendered unconscious. This 'stunning' is usually done by a mechanical blow to the head. The procedure is terribly imprecise, and inadequate stunning is inevitable. The result of poor stunning is conscious animals hanging upside down, kicking and struggling, while a slaughterhouse worker makes another attempt to render them unconscious. Eventually, the
animals will be "stuck" in the throat with a knife, and blood will gush from their bodies whether or not they are unconscious."


*

*


POULTRY:

"Today's meat chickens have been genetically altered to grow twice as fast, and twice as large as their ancestors. Pushed beyond their biological limits, hundreds of millions of chickens die every year before reaching slaughter weight at 6 weeks of age. An industry journal explains "broilers now grow so rapidly that the heart and lungs are not developed well enough to support the remainder of the body, resulting in congestive heart failure and tremendous death losses." Modern meat type chickens also experience crippling leg disorders, as their legs are not capable of supporting their abnormally heavy bodies. Confined in unhealthy factory farms, the birds also succumb to heat prostration, infectious disease, and cancer.

...

Once inside the slaughterhouse, fully conscious birds are hung by their feet from metal shackles on a moving rail. The first station on most poultry slaughterhouse assemblylines is the stunning tank, where the birds' heads are submerged in an electrified bath of water. Although poultry is specifically excluded from the Humane Slaughter Act which requires stunning, the practice is common because it immobilizes the birds and expedites assemblyline killing.

Stunning procedures are not monitored, and they are often inadequate. Poultry slaughterhouses commonly set the electrical current lower than what is required to render the birds unconscious because of concerns that too much electricity would damage the carcass and diminish its value. The result is that birds are immobilized but are still capable of feeling pain, or they emerge from the stunning tank still conscious.

After passing through the stunning tank, the birds' throats are slashed, usually by a mechanical blade, and blood begins rushing out of their bodies. Inevitably, the blade misses some birds who then proceed to the next station on the assembly line, the scalding tank. Here they are submerged in boiling hot water. Birds missed by the killing blade are boiled alive. This occurs so commonly, affecting millions of birds every year, that the industry has a term for these birds. They are called "redskins"."


*

*

*

*

*

*

*


PORK:

"Approximately 100 million pigs are raised and slaughtered in the U.S. every year. As babies, they are subjected to painful mutilations without anesthesia or pain relievers. The piglets' tails are cut off to minimize tail biting, an aberrant behavior which occurs when these highly intelligent animals are kept in deprived factory farm environments. In addition, notches are taken out of the piglets' ears for identification.

...

Numerous research studies conducted over the last 25 years have pointed to physical and psychological maladies experienced by sows in confinement. The unnatural flooring and lack of exercise causes obesity and crippling leg disorders, while the deprived environment results in neurotic coping behaviors such as bar biting, dog sitting, and "mourning".

After giving birth and nursing their young for two to three weeks, the piglets are taken away to be fattened, and the sow is reimpregnated. Hog factories strive to keep their sows '100 % active', as an article in Successful Farming explains, "Any sow that is not gestating, lactating or within seven days post weaning is non-active." When the sow is no longer deemed a productive breeder, she is sent to slaughter.

In addition to experiencing overcrowded housing, sows and pigs are also experience crowding in transportation - despite the fact that this crowding causes suffering and deaths. As a hog industry expert writes, "Death losses during transport are too high - amounting to more than $8 million per year. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out why we load as many hogs on a truck as we do. It's cheaper. So it becomes a moral issue. Is it right to overload a truck and save $.25 per head in the process, while the overcrowding contributes to the deaths of 80,000 hogs each year?"."


*

*

*

*

*

*


DAIRY/VEAL:

"Although the dairy industry is familiar with the cows' health problems and suffering associated with intensive milk production, it continues to subject cows to even worse abuses in the name of increased profit. Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), a synthetic hormone, is now being injected into cows to get them to produce even more milk. Besides adversely affecting the cows' health, BGH also increases birth defects in their calves.

Calves born to dairy cows are separated from their mothers immediately after birth. Half of the dairy calves born are female, and they are raised to replace older dairy cows in the milking herd. The other half of the calves are male, and because they will never produce milk, they are raised and slaughtered for meat. Most are killed for beef, but about one million are used for veal.

The veal industry was created as a by-product of the dairy industry to take advantage of an abundant supply of unwanted male calves. Veal calves live for up to sixteen weeks in small wooden crates where they cannot turn around, stretch their legs, or even lie down comfortably. The calves are fed a liquid milk substitute which is deficient in iron and fiber and designed to make the animals anemic. It is this anemia which results in the light colored flesh which is prized as veal. In addition to this high priced veal, some calves are killed at just a few days old to be sold as low grade 'bob' veal for products like frozen TV dinners."


*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*


EGGS:

"After one year in egg production, the birds, are classified as 'spent hens', and sent off to slaughter. They usually end up in soups, pot pies, or similar low grade chicken meat products where their bodies can be shredded to hide the bruises from consumers. The hens' brittle, calcium-depleted bones often shatter during handling and/or at the slaughterhouse.

...

In some cases, especially if the cost of replacement hens is high, the hens may be force molted. This process involves starving the hens for up to 18 days, keeping them in the dark, and denying them water to shock their bodies into another egg laying cycle. The birds may lose more than 25% of their body weight during the molt, and it is common for between 5% and 10% to die.

For every egg laying hen confined in a battery cage, there is a male chick who was killed at the hatchery. Because egg laying chicken breeds have been selected exclusively for maximum egg producton, they don't grow fast enough or large enough to be raised profitably for meat. Therefore, male chicks of egg laying breeds are of no economic value. They are literally discarded on the day they hatch - usually by the least expensive and most convenient means available. They may be thrown in trash cans where they are suffocated or crushed under the weight of others.

A common method used to dispose of unwanted male chicks is grinding them up alive. This method can result in unspeakable horrors as a research scientist described, "Even after twenty seconds, there were only partly damaged animals with whole skulls". In other words, fully conscious chicks were partially ground up. Eyewitness accounts at commercial hatcheries indicate similar horrors with chicks being slowly dismembered on augers carrying them towards a trash bin or manure spreader. "


*

*

*

*

*

*


Above excerpts and photos courtesy of Farm Sanctuary (website gives permission), http://www.factoryfarming.org

MORE MISCELLANEOUS PHOTOS:


*

*

*

*


Above photos from http://www.mercyforanimals.org

but is there not a more 'humane' way to kill these animals? I'm not a vegetarian (although I'm leaning more toward becoming one), but I'd like for these animals to go through as little pain as possible if they're going to be killed.

But a vast majority of the animals are slaughtered en masse by large conglomerate, corporate operations. The laborers are under extreme pressure to perform faster and thus make more mistakes. The ever-present pursuit of profit-at-all-costs makes the supervisors constantly push for faster production lines. The faster things move, the more animals are scalded alive, bled to death unconscious, or literally skinned alive.

In a nutshell, our current system will not change for the better in that regard - the profits are always more important.

There are some farms that are specifically cruelty free. The animals are well cared for and allowed to roam freely etc. until their demise which is handled with great care to avoid suffering.

Many years ago a great man said: "We are life which wills to live
amidst life which wills to live."

It frustrated me to no end on the moral and ethical reasons, health reasons aside. The fact remains, that my personal boycott makes no difference in the lives of these poor beings, they will still be slaughtered, they still exist in abject misery. There's nothing we can do, short of storming these places and freeing animals who would not likely survive for very long in the wild, anyway. It's very depressing.

and that's part of the reason I probably won't become a vegetarian. I just absolutely hate the way these poor animals are put to death.

I don't have an image of it but on the 'Commanding Heights' PBS series there's a sickening image of farmers intentionally drowning baby chickens in order to decrease supply so prices would increase.

Here's a couple other ones by him that I like:

"While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?"

"Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends."

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them, that's the essence of inhumanity."

but, in many cases their living conditions are so miserable that death is likely a relief.

definitely an all round ugly situation

Boycotts, by their very nature, are mass movements that require millions of participants to be effective on the national level. Fortunately, the meat boycott already has over 10 million participants, with plenty more joining every year. This means that the individual boycott is all that more effective because you're part of the mass movement.

Every year, every vegetarian saves an acre of trees and 83 animal's lives. That's worth it to me. And it's not about personally being responsible for the destruction of the industry, it's about being one of millions of people who decided that they don't want their hard-earned money to personally pay for such things, because everytime you purchase one of those products, you're voting with your own dollars that you approve of the practices.

People aren't going to stop driving SUVs because environmentalists boycott them, but that doesn't mean we should all go out and buy Hummers. Bush still went to war in Iraq despite millions of people protesting, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have protested. The bus boycott by African-Americans wasn't effective because of MLK or Rosa Parks alone, but think, just for a minute, if either of those two figures had failed to act because "they were just one person."

Further, the meat/dairy/egg industry is a very low-profit-margin industry. They're highly vulnerable to economic damage from boycotts and consumer campaigns. It wouldn't take much to suck the small profit involved out of their business.

And finally, it's also not about "freeing" the farmed animals to go live in the wild. The idea is to shutdown the industry so they'll never be bred in the first place. The cycle is usually only a couple months, between birth and slaughter - the idea isn't to let loose the masses onto the wild plains, but to prevent the next batch from being bred into an existence of complete misery in the first place. As the demand for these products declines, so will the production, it won't happen overnight.

Anyway, those are my thoughts - I wish you well in whatever paths you choose. :)

More and more, humans disgust me. I honestly don't know if I can eat meat again, I actually prefer veggies anyways.

If you want advise on making a successful transition, please don't hesitate to send me a private message! :)

but people make money causing horrific pain and suffering to food animals? Oh, that's right, $$$.

I just posted this about the puppy:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=461&mesg_id=461

People who want to buy meat and not concerned about price can buy it from local farmers who have their own slaughter operation. Or buying kosher or halal meat, which has prescribed slaughter procedures with some consideration. But folks for the most part want to pay the least amount of money so here we go with the mass produced slaughterhouse.

Pass the Boca burgers please....

hunt the meat yourselves. Venison, goose, duck, pheasant, bear, etc, all good-eating, healthier for you than farm-raised and, as long as you are practice enough to be a good shot (which EVERY hunter should), the death is quick and with as little pain as possible. Gives you a lot more respect for whats on your plate when you hunt it yourself.

Go out and shoot a deer, drag it through the woods, strap it to the hood of your car or toss it in your truck would send most FDA officials screaming through the night.

This is why my wife's uncle (a major league hunter) is in his mid 50s and is fat as shit and in pathetic health. He ate what he killed...and now he pays 3,000 a month in insurance because his arteries are a mess.

Your wife's uncle's poor health is from other sources (no exercising,fatty foods,genetics,etc.) but not from wild game.


Wild game is lower in fats than beef and pork and what you purchase from the stores and farms. You have no worries about any chemicals (preservatives,etc) being in it either. It is the best meat that a person could possibly consume if they chose to do so.

Do a research on the fatty contents of wild game compared to beef,pork and chicken (and even fish) and see what you get. Maybe you will and maybe you won't. Being informed might help the uncle some and other family members someday.

kosher doesnt not mean less cruelty. (not sure about halal).

standard slaughter techniques "render" an animal unconscious by driving a bolt through its skull. however, because speed=higher profits, animals arent always render unconsious. animals have been documented as blinking, moving, making noises etc as they are gutted.

kosher means that an animal can not be "unconsious" before it is slaughtered. im not sure what the process is but the captive bolt is not allowed, which is supposed to knock an animals out so it does not feel anything.

I became a vegetarian for the reasons mentioned in this first post. Some of you say "one person boycotting meat will not make a difference". I disagree. I have noticed that more and more grocery stores and restaurants offer food that is labeled vegetarian. We are getting noticed. A market would be foolish to ignore us, we have buying clout and it is expanding as more people become vegetarian.

Some of you noted that you can hunt game or carefully select a food supplier (a farmer) who goes through the trouble of raising livestock responsibly. I think that that is a good way to deal with the problem also. Thank you for caring.

Your post should be read by every American. I am totally against the
mass, bloody slaughter of our animal friends. I could never understand
how that hunters could kill Bambi. Our animals do not deserve this.
They are more beautiful to look at than to eat.

I grew up in the country~sorta.
I had chickens.I had them as pets.Chickens when treated with love are great companions. they are intellegent and have unique personalities and ways of speaking to you.Anyways I took the eggs because If I didn't they'd go bad and crack and stink up the coop..I had two hens, a rootser and some banties.I used to let them out of the coop during the day,they'd all perch in the apple tree.My chickens knew thier names and they'd answer to them.They'd fly out of the tree to meet me after school.I'd pick them up and kiss 'em hello.My mom was freaked out when she saw my rooster had huge spurs on his legs .And she was even more amazed he never used them on me.Even when I did things he didn't like like give him nasty medicine to treat a scale problem on his legs he had once.

My animal buddies rocked my world.Even when humans were cruel they were there.They were my best freinds growing up.My dog defended the cats,chickens ect.if another dog went into our yard looking to poach a bird or rabbit.Sometimes the chickens would sleep with the cat and the rabbits or they'd all cozy up togeher with me if I was just lying in the grass. The chickens were affectionate funny birds..I kid you not.I even made a cage for them in my bedroom so they'd be warm in the winter at night before we rigged the heater in the coop outside.The cage in my room was just a big coop taking up about 4 feet of space from floor to ceiling with a tray on the bottom and a bunch of perches and feeders like a birdcage has.(they'd all nest on my bed an leave deposits on my covers if I didn't put them in the cage when I was out of the room.)In the house,they were so much like cats or dogs, when they slept seeking out places where your scent was strong like bedding ,old socks or old stinky shirts.they'd sit in my lap twisted around my cat,while I watched cartoons getting pet.They lived long lives.I got plenty of free eggs.I had so many I gave some away.
And when the hen had her batch of chicks,she let me know not to take her eggs by pecking my hand (not hard).Something she never did unless there were chicks in there.

Compassion and relationship to the animals is what is lost in factory farming,along with respect,caring,love.Death will exist wherever there is life,but it does not have to be life and death without relationship,love,kindness and respect.These things take the sting of death away because it makes life more precious and meaningful even for animals.Alot of people don't see the communication that goes on between animal to animal, prey and predator or animal to person.Especially if force prey and predator into human frameworks like all or nothing, all predators are evil or these warped social darwinist survival of the fittest mindgames.
I think alot of people cannot understand interspecies communication anymore because they do not love the amimals or understand what consent is or treat thier fellow beings with love or respect,or relate to them without domination and power entering the relationship.They don't want the animals to be who they are..So they just murder the animals they 'own'and commodify them,make caractures of them. People think the rule of brute force or the blindness of belief settles it.But it doesen't.
This living in our heads is why alot of people(even well meaning vegans) can't hear the song in the heart that goes on between prey and predator either. Communication between very different species over matters of life or death conflicts with what we are taught to believe and what we want to believe.It has nothing to do with what we think or want.I know animals can relate to us as equals.The problem is we don't relate to them as our peers.Shit we have problems relating to one another as equals.

So because of human bias animal communication not allowed to exist.ButI know it does because I have experinced it.It doesen't require words to understand someone and what they meant. 90% of communication is non verbal..I know alot of people would blow me off as a nut or something worse.But my own experince and just listening has taught me plenty about the depth of compassion in animals through amazing examples of thier nobility.The animals have taught me how to love.They have saved my life and warmed my heart when I thought all was lost.And I owe everything to them.

We went through some rough times.My father being the jerk he was kept threatening to eat my chickens,he threatened to sell them..I said no and I would fight him over it.If he got too threatening,than the dog would get involved and my rooster would fly against the coop wire his spurs aimed at my father,the cat would hiss and growl from his perch on the coop roof.They defended me from my abusive father and bullies more than once.
I would tell the chickens the stuff our family was going through our family was not a happy one. School was hell for me.Around this time, Henreietta stopped laying because she was growing old.She died in a strange way,by wedging her own head into the chickenwire where we could not free her even with wire snips without killing her.
Why she did it I dunno,she didn't seem unhappy or stressed beforehand. Maybe she was curious to see if her head would fit in there? Maybe she was bored,maybe something startled her? There is one other explanation.Call me crazy. Maybe it was suicide.I would pour out my emotions my hopes and fears to my animal freinds.I had raised her like she was a human child.Like I do every animal I am graced to share my life with.Her heart might have been breaking because she empathized with the human condition more than some humans dare to.Maybe she was afraid to be sold and didn't want to leave her home? Maybe she was upset at the cruelty of my father? When one baby cries in a nursery they all cry,why? because they are so sensitized to each other's sufferings and cry out at the sound of pain.We are desentized to each other's pain by our beliefs by the domination system, by our culture and by the way we force ourselves too live.Who Knows what she learned from us? Whatever it was it troubled her.Call it anthromorphizing animals all you want.But we are like each other because we are all animals living in one world ,we are all related deep down.

I know an equal relationship of love,compassion and respect can prevent depression and suicide.A good relationship connection is vital to life this is why people seek each other or form relationships with animals.I also know losing a relationship like that can drive someone to consider suicide. Isn't it strange how long time lovers die,soon after one dies? It happens in the animal kingdom too.I know when one of my animals or human freinds die before thier time it is horrible the grief.

One day I was sitting by a fire,two toads came near the fire and warmed themselves,I sat there watching them.They sat there with each other for a time.Suddenly one toad lept about a foot right into the flames.I saw the other toad hop away,fast. I couldn't believe my eyes. I stirred the flames and found the body. Why? What were they saying? What would make a toad kill himself? Depression? Was he sick? Making a statement? Was it a ceremony? It's just too weird. The land around there is being developed,ponds are being drained,earth dug up.Animals have no place to live when developers come and steal thier homes in the name of profit and sprawl.Or were they doing something deeper and more mysterious than I can understand? Or was it another proof of the frog in boiling water thing? It appeared the toad deliberately lept into the fire.
I have read accounts of dogs attacking cars..Why? What are they saying about us?

http://www.unknownnews.net/0228-1.html

When I read of the barbaric practices in slaughterhouses of debeaking and the way chickens and other animals are treated to squeeze more profit out of them. I get so pissed I wanna cry and lash out at Ceo's and curse humanity.I want to rescue the animals from these ignorant fucks.I have dreams of animals trampling thier captors..I want to embarass companies and shame them into compassion with resistance to domination. But I don't know how to reach people who are desensitized,never have the time to relate to non-humans, afraid,misinformed,traumatized,stuck on domination,unrealistically living in thier own heads,and so selfish,confused,closed -minded and so guilty all at the same time.People belive so deeply in redeptive violence..and when they do they sell thier souls to this sick system of power yet again.In todays monocultured suburbs which where I grew up has now become,Zoning laws and ignorant neighbors make the concept of having a few chickens living in the backyard impossible.(even when you have the space)Forget it if you have an apartment.You have to buy eggs and meat.And when you buy it you lose control over how the amimals you eat are treated. Oversight boards can be bribed if they are corrpyable.and as far as I can tell all of humanity is corruptable.I dispise the suburbian culture,where everything is the same ,where you have to drive to get anywhere and everyone lives in thier big houses with no trees on thier lawns,devoid of life.I miss my chickenfreinds.


Maybe situations like the toad dying in the flames or the dogs attacking cars happens because as a species we have broken the animal's hearts with the way we are so violent and abusive twords others and by the way we consume our shared world and destroy it thoughtlessly,without compassion or concern for other's well being.Maybe the animals are trying to tell us we are destroying them and ourselves.If we don't stop it on our own, collective voilition what will it take to stop us if we can't stop ourselves? Animal revolt,disaster? There is so much we do not understand about reality,consiousness and this world.
We have to get beyond this blind self absorbed, compartmentalized ,anthrocentric,materialistic only matters,religious, social darwinist,domination and hubris.What kinds of resistance will get through all the crap and get to the heart of a sick culture chained by the invisible chains of belief??

You are absolutely correct on many counts.

"They don't want the animals to be who they are..So they just murder the animals they 'own'and commodify them,make caractures of them. People think the rule of brute force or the blindness of belief settles it.But it doesen't.
This living in our heads is why alot of people(even well meaning vegans) can't hear the song in the heart that goes on between prey and predator either."

I agree completely, and one thing that always bothers me is portrayals of nature as a happy, wonderful, jolly good time. The fact is that nature is pretty harsh and probably pretty scary for prey animals - but that's not the point.

Commidification of animals and factory farming is immoral for reasons for different than "the animals deserve to live happily ever after in nautre." It's a completely unnatural relationship between us, human animals, and our food supply. It denies the animals their most basic instincts and wants, and it subjects them to extraordinarily, lifelong suffering.

Predator prey relationships are so extraordinarily intricate. Hunter/gatherer societies and other sustainable cultures such as the Native Americans had an intimate relationship with their environment and all the animals that lived there, prey or not. There is an excerpt from The Earth First! Journal that describes it pretty well, the writer is discussing his experiences at a primitive school, where he learned to live a primitive lifestyle outside of society:

"Hunting successfully in a primitive manner is mostly a matter of awareness and attunement in relation to the wild communities of one's bioregion, and it becomes extremely difficult without a long-term and deep level of built-in intimacy.

At the primitive camp, we take a considerable amount of time to prepare for our first hunt, since it is a powerful and sacred act. This preparation entails getting to know our fellow animal peoples nearly as intimately as we know our human relations. This is because, as hunter-gatherers, our needs and well-being are intertwined with theirs - they are not "pests" who eat our crops or just "pretty animals" that we like to view - they are us, and we are them.

With this level of intimacy, we might know that, for instance, the old buck that we have seen mature and become an elder these past years has recently injured his leg and will be unlikely to survive the coming winter. Or possible that a neighboring doe gave birth to a second fawn that is too weak to mature into adulthood. With this level of attunement, the equipment needed for hunting that crippled buck or weak fawn might be as simple as a rawhide snare and a knife. Also, one can then be sure that s/he is taking what is being offered by her/his relations rather than disrespecting their gifts and weakening their populations (as when high-tech sport-hunters kill trophy bucks and deplete the deer-people of their best and strongest young warriors each year)."

if you cant watch it, you have no right to eat meat (in my own opinion). if you eat meat (99% of animal products come from factory farming conditions depicted ) you are causing someone else to do your dirty-work.

www.meetyourmeat.com

I agree watching an animal killed and being forced to eat it might sensitize some people,to the awful lives and deaths factory farmed animals have..I have "sensitized" a kid who was shooting birds this way,he shot a rabbit,So,I made him dress it,clean it cook it and eat it.He never picked up the damn BB gun again.But for others,it would be like any other killing,because they don't understand it beyond a selfish oriented way.Thank TV,war and daily doses of tragedy and pain free consequence free violence that builds up this disparing cynical hatred of vunerability,empathy and responsibility and divorced violence from hurt.
Either way it's taken by 'civilized' people I know the sacredness of the hunt,the respect of the relationship won't even be considered.

Click here and go to the bottom of the page to view a video that will break your heart.